1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to systems and apparatus for hanging documents, such as drawings, maps, newspapers, magazines, etc., on horizontal rails.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art discloses rigid document hanging bars for extending across rails with various means for attaching documents thereto, such as flexible strips or strings or flexible tangs of a fastener threaded through aligned holes in the bar and documents as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,298,374 and in French Pat. No. 731,238. These prior art hanging apparatus with rigid hanging bars suffer from one or more deficiencies such as being relatively difficult to attach or remove a document from the hanger, requiring expensive fasteners, requiring an excessive amount of space, etc. In our U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,488 there is disclosed a strip-like rigid hanger with a flexible lower portion from which flexible straps with single heads at one end of the straps are severed, the other ends of the straps remaining attached to the document support portion, wherein the straps pass through holes in a document and the heads are interlocked with the slots left by the severed straps in the lower portion to secure the document to the hanger; this document hanger while presenting a substantial improvement over the prior art is difficult to manufacture and the heads of the straps tend to come out of the upper keyed ends of the slots during handling of the hanger and document.
Also disclosed in the prior art are various other non-related types of fastening devices, such as a filament with heads or cross-bars at the opposite ends thereof for attaching tags to garments or the like disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,110 or a double headed strap for a key case such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,564,382. Generally, these non-related types of fastening devices are inapplicable or unsuitable for hanging documents on support bars.
Strips fastened to the top edges of documents with holes in the strips for being placed on horizontal telescoping pins and tubes to support the documents are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,205,903. To remove a selected document, the documents in front of the selected document must be removed first from the tubes; this increases the time and difficulty of obtaining the selected document from a file. Relatively rigid strips with apertures forming hook-shaped openings for hooking over rails are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,969,793 and Switzerland Pat. No. 349,954 while more complex shape openings or hooks are formed in rigid strips disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,208,457, French Pat. No. 1,219,080, and Netherlands Pat. No. 6,706,044; documents with these hanging strips having hook-like formations therein are subject to falling from the rail or rails upon which they are supported by being moved or tilted during handling or removing of adjacent files. U.S. Pats. No. 1,832,239 and No. 1,878,177 disclose flexible tabs on the top edges of documents with holes in the tabs and slits extending from the hole to the top of the tabs so that the fastener may be flexed to receive a support rod in the hole; documents hung by these tabs tend to fall off of the support rods. A substantial improvement in a flexible hanging strip is disclosed in our U.S. Pat. No. 2,923,353 wherein a folded flexible strip has openings formed therethrough for receiving the rails with a slit extending from one side of the opening to the upper folded edge of the strip.
Rigid hangers, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,678,651, Great Britain Pat. No. 1,153,729 and our U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,488 employ rigid bars with end portions which are notched to extend over spaced horizontal rails. Documents on these rigid hangers are removed from the rails either by lifting upward between the rails or by lifting at least one of the bar from one rail moving the bar toward one side, and rotating the bar to bring the lifted end underneath the one rail so that the bar and document may be removed sideways beneath the rail.
It is noted that the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 1,878,177 also discloses riders or spacers with notches receiving the support rods for moving or compacting documents on the supporting rods. However, this rider cannot be secured to hold the documents compacted against an end or intermediate position on the supporting rods.
Further, various supports for rails mounted on walls or in cabinets are disclosed in U.S. Pats. No. 1,878,177 and 2,935,204.